3DS Ambassador GBA Games Part Two

In this half of my breakdown of the 3DS Ambassador GBA games, i will be looking at Mario Kart: Super Circuit; Super Mario Advance 3 : Yoshi's Island; The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap; Kirby and the Amazing Mirror and Wario Land 4.


Part one can be found here.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

It's already well documented around the Infinity Feed blog how much of a Zelda nerd I am so, needless to say, I was so very excited to be getting my hands on this, one of the better Zelda handheld games (not that there are any bad ones of course).  Without going into too many spoilerific details, the premise of this tale is that Zelda and Hyrule are in trouble and Link must travel the world in search of artifacts with which he can restore the status quo.  Sound familiar? This may be just another Zelda game, but it is a very good one at that, and you should definitely check it out if you've not had the chance to play it before.

Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island

Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island was originally released on the SNES as Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, but was intended to be a prequel to all other existing titles - keeping up?  I didn't own either iteration of this game having missed the SNES completely in favour of the MegaDrive (Sega Genesis) when i was given the option of "Mario or Sonic?".  I did, however, play Yoshi's Story on the N64 so all was relatively familiar to me.  You control Yoshis (including the one named Yoshi..) as you escort baby Mario across the world - the controls are very simple yet extremely versatile; lick an enemy and spit him out or save him for later, not quite making a jump? do a flutter jump!  The game is massive, with around 60 levels of platforming fun; I can't see myself getting through that many, but with a spare 10 minutes or so you could do much worse than blasting through a level or two of this!

Kirby and the Amazing Mirror

I got confused really quickly when playing this game; I'd never played a Kirby game before, but from the Super Smash Bros. games and a general gaming awareness I knew what to expect.  But the game started so quickly, I don't know if I was hammering the start button and skipped a cutscene or whether I needed to wait in the menu for one to start, but there I was, dropped into a world with three others Kirbys with no idea what I was trying to do.  The game was enjoyable enough though - floating around and blasting enemies with air was cool if a little cheap, and the forms Kirby can take are awesome.  In the brief window I had alotted this game I was a sword-wielding knight, a kung-fu fighter, a guy with an electric whip of balls (?) and a bomb throwing maniac - and I know there are dozens of other whacky and creative forms.  I will definitely be making my way back to this game in the near future - even if it is just to work out the story...

Mario Kart: Super Circuit

This is a Mario Kart game; next please... Oh, I suppose i should probably write a little more.  That first statement is correct though, this game is Mario Kart, nothing more, nothing less.  There is an impressive number of courses to choose from; the traditional power-ups are there; you have 8 different drivers to choose from; there is a 'ghost driver' timetrial mode - what more do you want?  Multiplayer?  Well, as with the other games in the Ambassador program, multiplayer is sadly lacking at this moment in time, though sources say that when these games become available to the general public, multiplayer will be packaged in - so fingers crossed! Because what's a Mario Kart game without red-shell-induced tears and friendships shattered by blue shells?

Wario Land 4

I had no idea Wario had spawned so many games of his own.  I played one of the Gameboy Color (the only time I will ever spell 'colour' without a 'U') titles and remember liking it; but with 4 Wario Lands, numerous Warioware games and many, many appearances in the Mario multiplayer games, Wario certainly is the dark-horse of the Mario franchise.  The fifth and final platformer of the Ambassador freebies, Wario Land 4 is more based around the manipulation of the environment than the others, which keeps the collection as a whole from feeling very same-y.  Wario is different to usual protagonists, in that he is clearly in the adventure solely for his own monetary gain, which is refreshing in a narcissistic kind of way.  The puzzles are great, the exploration is great, the game is big enough that you can't blast through it in an afternoon - a great solid gaming experience to end this breakdown on.


Conclusion
When the Ambassador program was first announced along with the 3DS price drop, I was very  dubious as to the quality of the games we were going to be receiving in exchange for being essentially duped out of dozens of pounds/dollars for nothing more than being loyal to our favourite gaming company.  But, in my opinion, these GBA games are more than worth the extra money I paid to get my 3DS release day and add up in combination with the now fairly solid looking library of games the 3DS has, with more on the way.  If Nintendo keep this recent form up I'm sure the 3DS will live up to its dimensionally-challenged cousins' legacy!


Follow me on Twitter for not-so-occasional insights into the geek world: @IFeed_Dish

Dish Out!